SAN FRANCISCO — Scott Hansen owns a lot of synthesizers. Moogs. Korgs. Obscure Italian synths from companies that don't exist anymore. He loves them and protects them, because they make the music that makes him famous.

But whatever you do, don't call Hansen, who performs under the name Tycho, a "synthesizer collector."

Leading Wired.com through the basement studio here that houses his wares, Hansen lovingly showed off each item, but stressed that having so many synths isn't about amassing fetish items — it's about trying lots of machines in order to find particular sounds.

"I know it looks bad right now, but that's why I have to get rid of some of them because there is some redundancy and waste here," Hansen said. "I'd rather sell all of them than refer to myself as a collector. It seems sacrilegious. It's wasteful if it's not getting used because there are only so many of these in the world. Somebody else could put it to good use."

That doesn't mean there aren't a few prized items Hansen, who is also a graphic designer under the name ISO50 (see his blog of the same name here), simply couldn't live without. When making his latest album, Dive, which came out last week on Ghostly International, Hansen fell in love with the Minimoog and ended up using it to create many of the sounds on the record. He also used string synths to get the ambient, atmospheric vibes he was looking for.

Hansen let Wired.com into his basement, which houses more keys than a Clipse record, to photograph his favorite synthesizers and talk about why each is so important. Check out his favorites in the gallery above and listen to his remix of Little Dragon's "Little Man" below. You can download the track right here (free MP3; right-click and "Save As").

Minimoog

The Minimoog is Hansen's favorite music machine — he calls the versatile instrument "the Les Paul of synths."

"That's the most famous synth of all time, I think," he said. "People who don't even make music sometimes recognize this. It's been on every album, ever. This is from my buddy. I got this from him a year ago and just fell in love with it. It's on permanent loan.

"I used to think, 'Oh man, Minimoogs, everybody uses them.' For a long time I didn't want to mess with any synths that were too famous, because I just figured it would be boring. I went over every song on the album and ended up kind of changing parts out and using this in it."

Access Virus C

Hansen uses a smaller version of this Access Virus C when he performs live. "It's the best-sounding virtual analog I've ever heard," he said. "I think after the C they screwed it up because they put converters on it that were too good."

Korg Mono/Poly

The Korg Mono/Poly, another of Hansen's favorites, was "designed as the Japanese Minimoog."

"They used to have those walls of modular synthesizers and crazy guys were taking those on the road," Hansen said. "They tried to kind of simplify it and add some functionality. But it doesn't sound anything like [the Minimoog]. It's kind of its own thing. This is more disco-y, like electronic, '70s dance."

Manufactured in the early '80s, they can be purchased for around $1,000 these days, he said.

Oberheim Four Voice

The Oberheim Four Voice was the first polyphonic synth, meaning "you can actually play chords," Hansen said. "In the synth world it's all about this and the Minimoog.

"I don't know if any normal people will appreciate this [instrument], but if any synth freak saw this article, they would go insane."

Moog Source

"In the '80s they got all smart and decided nobody needed tactile feedback and they just used membrane switches," Hansen said, talking sarcastically about the Moog Source. "It's so indicative of what [synthesizer makers] thought the future was going to be."

Korg VC-10 Vocoder

Hansen's Korg VC-10 Vocoder is rare in that it's paired with a microphone created specifically to be used with the synthesizer. Most people just bought a cheaper third-party microphone to use with the VC-10 rather than the one made by Korg.